February 19, 2013

"Seasons of Insanity" by Gill Ainsworth and Frank W. Haubold: A Horror Story for Every Season

In 2013, I am resolved to read more
stories by international authors, and it didn't take long before I
had to opportunity to read this collection co-authored by German
author, Frank W. Haubold, and British author, Gill Ainsworth. The
collaborative effort is published by Apex Books, which usually points
towards a quality book, so I had my hopes up with this one.

Seasons
of Insanity is presented as a
twelve-story collection, offering a short story representing each
month of the year moving from spring all the way to the dead of
winter. And as Gill points
out in the introduction, one of the recurring themes through each
story, thus inspiring the title for the book, is the prospect of
insanity.

Things
kick off with March and a story by Gill called "Cuddly Toys."
It's a brief tale, but it
packs a sharp jab at the end, and it served as a good watermark for
the rest of the book. "He Who Picks the Bones" is Haubold's
first story in the collection, a winding road trip through a madman's
thoughts. Gil Ainsworth had
her turn with a woman's mad obsession with shoplifting in "Thanks,
Sharon, Come Again."

It's a dozen stories, which range from
good to really good. There isn't a lot of meat on the bone as far as
page count goes, weighing in somewhere around 130 pages, but there's
plenty as far as story goes. The tone of the book leans more towards
atmospheric than overt, focusing on the psychology of each character
rather than the situations. I didn't find a whole lot in the suspense
department, but there was definitely plenty of creepiness and mundane
scenes turned slightly askew to make things unsettling.

There is no one story that is a
collaboration between both authors, at least not beyond Enlish
translations, which I thought a little odd. It would have been
interesting to see what these two authors could have cooked up
storywise, but I suppose it's enough that they found a rhythym and a
theme for their respective stories in this one book. I'll have to
keep an eye out for more from these two, whether it's collaborative
or solo efforts.